


the watcher on the walls

by the_ragnarok



Series: Proxy [4]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Blindfolds, D/s, M/M, Praise Kink, Safeword Use, Self-Esteem Issues, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:45:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7378492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/the_ragnarok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold has an artist's hand: it's just that his favorite mediums are code and, very rarely, former operatives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the watcher on the walls

It might be the longer nights making John more paranoid than ever, his own twist on seasonal depression. He'd considered and discarded the possibilities that somebody might be really after him, or that he's reacting to the oppressive holiday spirit that's taken over New York.

He sees families walking down the streets, children laughing and running, and in his mind the tinned carols twist like the soundtrack to a horror movie. Not a promise, but a threat: _Look at all that there is to lose_.

So maybe it is the holidays, a little bit. It doesn't matter. John has ways of coping. 

Some of them, he doesn't mind admitting, are less dignified than others. John has already exhausted all the ones that look good, from checking and re-checking his ordnance and adding random patrols to his schedule to making plans for doomsday scenarios including an alien invasion of New York.

(For that one, he gets Harold to either hack their ship or negotiate with the aliens. Harold didn't appreciate that, when John told him about it. 

"Getting Linux to speak to Windows is complicated enough," Harold said indignantly, "and you think an interface to an _entirely alien system_ can be written from scratch before they fry us all with their lasers?"

John raised his eyebrows and said, "Gee, Harold, you sure know a lot about alien software. Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I _don't_ know, that's exactly my--" Harold gave up then, giving John a sharp look. "Never mind. I'm sure that my hacking their interface is exactly as likely as an alien invasion is to begin with," which was what John hoped for all along.)

When these fail, John finds himself huddled in a closet in one of their safe houses. It's full of Harold's jackets, Harold's fussy shoes leaving John little room to place his feet. 

That's okay. The stuffiness is part of the point: the susurration of fabric surrounding John, slightly scratchy wool touching him everywhere. The jackets smell faintly of Harold. The space is small and crowded and John is allowed to be here for as long as he wants.

Usually, that's enough to set him to rights, get his heartbeat to slow and his thoughts to calm. 

Tonight, he leaves the closet, locks the safe house's door behind him. His heartbeat did slow fractionally, if not as much as John hoped, and now it's rising again, not with exertion.

John has his phone and earpiece on, as always. He could call Harold. He doesn't.

The safehouse towards which John makes his way is in a quietly upscale neighborhood, the kind that doesn't take lightly to strangers loitering in the dark. John doesn't have a key to this house. Either Harold is in, or he won't be.

When John arrives, the porch light is on, and John lets out a long breath.

Harold opens the door in his shirtsleeves and a warm burgundy vest. John still has the sense memory of Harold's jackets, only just stops himself from nuzzling into the vest. The warmth and familiarity would feel better so close to the source. "Come in," Harold tells him. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"

"No." John puts on a smile. "Whatever is good."

"Hm, I see. Take your clothes off."

The first time Harold made such a suggestion, John thought Harold was finally over his shyness, his need to wait for John to ask. Harold spent the following half hour rubbing John's back, hands oiled and competent, and John had ended up offering his mouth out of sheer confusion.

Harold had turned him down, then, but subsequently held John close until John felt able to breathe deeply again.

This time, Harold blindfolds him. The blindfold is purpose made, high quality, dark and soft against John's forehead and the bridge of his nose. Then there is a rustle, the clatter of drawers opening, a scratchy sound like a bottle being uncorked.

John doesn't let himself startle at the first touch to his back. It's not any part of Harold, and the touch is light, ticklish. 

If he asks, he knows Harold will tell him what he's doing, but John would rather give himself a few moments longer to figure it out himself.

A handful of seconds later, it's obvious Harold is applying a paintbrush to John's back, wet with ink or paint. "Never took you for an artist," John says. 

It's a lie. Harold has an artist's hand: it's just that his favorite mediums are code and, very rarely, former operatives.

"It's a good thing I'm not," Harold says dryly. "This isn't even caligraphy, I'm afraid, only writing."

Even focusing, John can't make out the words Harold is putting on him. The strokes of the brush are too distracting, the sudden chill as the brush's hairs cross the bumps of his spine. "What does it say?"

Probably not _Whore_. Probably not _Property of Harold Finch_ , either, to John's regret.

"I am the sword in the darkness," Harold says, with a cadence that means he's quoting. "I am the shield that guards the realms of men." He clears his throat. "Or, well, in shorthand."

There's a sensation in John's mind like static noise, whiting out into overload. He comes out of it with a desperate, single-minded urge. "Fuck me," he tells Harold. Usually John is more polite - not to mention circumspect - about offering, but if Harold turns him down now John is ready to beg, motivated not by desire but by an almost violent need to give Harold something, anything.

Harold doesn't turn him down. Harold runs his hands down John's flanks, where there is no ink to smear, opens John up quickly and competently, and mounts him.

"Is that it?" Harold's thumb rubs under John's left shoulder blade. "If I knew you needed to be told you are strong and courageous I'd've said it ages ago. I thought you already knew."

John gasps and ruts against the sheets, running for the safety of orgasm, the rush of blood in his ears watering down the burn of the words, more powerful than any whiskey he'd ever sipped.

After, Harold kisses his shoulder and says, "You are, you know," far too gently.

John shakes his head. "Please," he says, and when Harold draws breath to speak again, John says, "red."

"Ah," Harold says. "May I ask a clarifying question?"

 _May_ , for fuck's sake, as though Harold doesn't have John's standing permission to do anything. The safeword was a courtesy to Harold, a way to let him know he's hurting John in a way he might not have intended. Harold could still keep going if he'd wanted.

"Yes," John says, because otherwise Harold would probably have just stared at him expectantly for the rest of the night.

"The... things I was telling you," Harold says, "could I try mentioning them again later on?"

 _You can do whatever you want_ , John doesn't say. Harold knows that. "You can try."

Harold's thumb brushes over John's cheek. "I very much appreciate you telling me to stop," he says. "Please do that whenever necessary.

"Oh, and one more question," Harold says, just as John is beginning to fall asleep. "Is it me saying such things you find objectionable? Or is it that I believe them?"

Unfair of Harold, to catch him off-guard like this. "I don't object," John manages to get out. "Just. Hurts."

For a long, drawn out moment, Harold just pets him, quiet. Then he says, "I see."

What he sees, John doesn't know. John doesn't care. John falls asleep and dreams of being a knight of old, of kneeling and bowing his head to feel the weight of a blade on his shoulder, the warmth of Harold's voice telling him to rise again.

"Get up." It's Harold again, and John blinks, and it's daytime, and he's in Harold's bed. "Mr. Reese, we have a number, and I brought you coffee."

Normally beverages are John's job. Today, he thinks, _I am the shield in the darkness_. He sits up and takes the cup from Harold with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> There is now [beautiful fanart for this by Merionees](http://merionees.tumblr.com/post/147019954452/artist-finch-and-his-canvas-pen-marker-sketch).


End file.
